IMTUF 100 mile race

I had the privilege to run the Idaho Mountain Trail Ultra Festival (IMTUF) 100 miler last weekend. The event is billed as a true mountain run and I would have to say that it lives up to that advertising. The fantastic loop course starts and ends at the Burgdorf Hot Springs and covers rough mountain territory with scenery comparable to what I would expect if I were planning an adventure run. Although the scenery is very different between the two, IMTUF and Big Horn would rank at the top of the 100 milers that I have done in terms of mountain scenery.

My Ambit stopped after capturing the route for the first 98.5 miles (despite re-charging)

The route is fairly remote with greater distances between aid stations than typical 100 milers and many of the aid stations have minimal food support given the difficulty in packing in supplies. This was exemplified by the Box Creek aid station at ~mile 74 which packed in supplies with goats and the hot grilled peanut butter sandwich they provided in the middle of the night was a lifesaver! If you plan to do this race, be sure to have ample quantities of food in your drop bags and carry plenty of food with you.

One of the goats which packed in aid for the Box Creek station (photo Irene Saphra)

In considering whether to sign up for this race, I was disconcerted by how long the previous finishing times were. I think the race is probably significantly longer than 100 miles which would explain some of the long finishing times. My watched stopped at at mile 98.5 with about 6 miles of the course left. Another runner's watch recorded 106.8 miles. My experience has been that GPS watches usually record distances shorter than the true distance since the watches tend to shortcut switchbacks in the trail. Whatever the real distance is, just be mentally prepared for the course to be a little long. In addition to the length, the course is more technical than any other 100 miler that I have done. There are some highly runnable sections of buttery single track (particularly in the first 20 miles of the clockwise direction) and some runnable dirt road sections, but much of the course is highly technical with rocky, difficult footing. This is particularly true on the tough climbs. The climbs do not last as long as some of the other big mountain 100s, but they make up for that with their steepness and technicality. For me, the hardest climb was the two miles out of the Snowslide Aid station. I hit this section in the late afternoon and the tough climb was compounded by heat of the sun. I made better time in the early evening darkness on the next tough climb up Fall Creek which is similarly steep. I do recommend poles for the course if you like poles. I picked up my poles at the Snowslide Aid station and kept them until the end.

Snowslide Lake (the climb continues over the ridge to the left)

A few more things to consider if you are preparing for this race. Although there are numerous sections with trees, several of the sections with trees have been burned and overall there is not a lot of cover from sunshine. There is a LOT of dust on the course. In some sections of jeep track at the top of Fall Creek, my foot would sink down several inches in the dust almost causing me to trip. Jeremy (the race director) warned that the combination of "moon dust" and water could be lethal to your feet. Fortunately, water levels were low and I was able to make the numerous stream crossings without getting my feet wet. Whether it was keeping my feet dry, or choice of shoe (Hoka Rapa Nui), or luck, my feet felt better than ever during a 100 miler and I never changed shoes or socks and had no blisters or feet issues. A couple of my Seattle friends did not have such good luck and you can read about and see the damaged feet in Linda's report. This is a course where you might want to wear gaiters.

I was fortunate to have a great day on the course and was able to maintain good energy and the ability to run all the way through the course to finish in 28:12. I had signed up for this event without realizing that they don't give out a belt buckle. Initially, I was disappointed, but the belt that they do give out is pretty cool. Even cooler, starting this year they decided to give out a belt buckle to runners who have finished the event twice. So I think I will be going back next year to run the loop in the counter clockwise direction, see the parts of the course that were in darkness this year and get a belt buckle!

Jeremy handing me my belt at the finish

Thanks to Jeremy and Brandi for organizing such an amazing event and to all the participants and volunteers for making the journey so much fun. Another feature of this event that stands out is the extraordinary course marking. At the briefing we were told that markers had been placed every 0.2 miles (or closer). I never had any doubts about whether I was on course or which way to turn which is much more pleasant than blundering around in the dark wondering which way to go which can happen to me much too easily.

I also highly recommend staying in one of the cabins at the Burgdorf Springs. My cabin was a short walk to the starting line which made Saturday morning super easy. The cabins do not have running water relaxing in the hot springs after the race made up for that and I was able to take a solid 3 hour nap after the race before driving back to civilization for food and a shower.

Beautiful trail along the Secesh River (~mile 15)

Looking back down into the Victor Creek Basin near the top of the 1st climb

Diamond Rock near top of Victor Creek Basin

Meadow along the twenty mile creek trail

Looking northeast near Duck Lake into the canyon containing the North Fork of the Salmon River

View from the ridge along Bear Pete Mountain before the final downhill to the finish

RIdge running in Glacier Peak Wilderness

My favorite guidebook to running routes in Washington State, Trekking Washington, by Mike Woodmansee has a 46 mile route through the Glacier Peak Wilderness that I have been wanting to do for several years. Matthew and I wanted to run in the area but wanted a shorter route so Matthew found a way to shorten the route down to about 31 miles with 8,000 feet of climbing. The original route starts at the North Fork Sauk Trailhead and ascends the Pilot Ridge trail before connecting to the PCT and then returning on the Lost Creek Ridge trail returning you to the North Fork Sauk Road four miles away from the trailhead where you started. Our alternative route starts and ends at the the North Fork Sauk Trailhead without any need for a car shuttle or running on the road. There are several additional ways one could connect the trails in this area to make a variety of loops. We started on the North Fork Sauk Trail and followed it along the river for about 6 miles when the trail turns and climbs steeply up for about 3 miles before a junction with the PCT. We turned left on the PCT and went about a mile to Red Pass. After a short break to eat and take in the views of Glacier Peak and the White Chuck River Basin we turned around and backtracked on the PCT, crossing White Pass and going another 7 miles or so to Dishpan Gap where we turned onto the Bald Eagle Trail and then onto the Blue Lake Trail. The climb up to the ridge above Blue Lake is incredibly steep and technical as is the climb down on the other side, but it is totally worth it. After exploring Blue Lake a bit, we proceeded on to the Pilot Ridge trail which took us on a long ridgeline high above the valley containing the North Fork Sauk river. After about 5 miles on the ridgeline the trail plunged down the side of the ridge and ultimately takes you back to a crossing of the North Fork Sauk river and the trail we started on about 2 miles from the trailhead. We spent about 9 and half hours exploring these trails near Glacier Peak and I think this was my favorite adventure run of the 2014. I highly recommend exploring the trails in this area, particularly if you like ridge running.

Route map starting from forest road NF-49 off of the Mountain Loop Highway

Trail climbing out of North Fork Sauk River Basin

PCT descending from Red Pass

White Chuck River Basin below Red Pass

Sloan Peak from Red Pass

White Pass

Matthew on the PCT with Glacier Peak in the background

Glacier Peak

Floating Ice in Blue Lake

Evolution Valley

I first learned of the Evolution Valley loop from my friend Shad. It is a 55 mile route with about 10K of climbing through the southern Sierras going over three high passes (Bishop, Muir and Piute) and including roughly 25 miles on the John Muir Trail. Subsequently, I read about the route in Trail Runner Magazine and have been itching to run it for a couple of years. When my friend BJ mentioned that he was planning to run it in early July I was all in. I flew down to southern California to meet BJ and Steve in Bishop. We stopped by the local running store, Sage to Summit, to get a few last minute items and check with them on trail conditions. I highly recommend stopping at the store if you are hiking or running in the area since they are super friendly and have great advice/information about trails in the area. Based on their advice, we decided to do the loop starting at the South Lake trailhead and finishing at the North Lake trailhead. We dropped one rental car at the North Lake trailhead Friday night and got ready for an early start on Saturday morning. The distance between trailheads is about 8 miles so it is possible to do the route completely as a loop without a car shuttle, but I highly recommend NOT trying to run between the trailheads. The day of running was too long as it was without adding a long road section on top of it. My badass friend Shad ran the road section to complete the loop solo and you can read about his experience here.

The scenery on this route is unparalleled, especially if you like the Sierras. Almost all of the trail is above treeline and there are lakes and granite everywhere. For me the day was incredibly difficult. I don't know how much of it was the altitude and how much was lack of fitness. The trailhead is at about 9,000 feet of elevation and we stayed between nine and twelve thousand feet the entire day. The climbs were very sustained with 8-12 miles uphill (or downhill) in a row. It ended up taking us almost 20 hours to arrive at the north lake trailhead. I highly recommend this route, but be prepared for a very difficult 55 miles. You can read another writeup on the route from Leor Pantilat here.

The route map

LeConte Canyon

Approaching Muir Pass

Helen Lake

Steve topping out at Muir Pass

Descending from Muir Pass

Black Giant

Sapphire Lake

Evolution Lake

Evolution Valley

McClure Meadow

Joaquin River

Kauai running

In April we spent a week on Kauai with a group of trail running friends and got to do several amazing trail runs. We started with the iconic Kalalau trail along the Napali coast. Unfortunately, my camera went on the fritz so I didn't get any pictures from this amazing run but you can see the route in the map below.

Kalalau trail route

The trail starts at Haena state park and goes along the coast for 11 miles to Kalalau beach where we hung out for a while before turning around to run back. The round trip has about 7,000 feet of climbing and took us just under 9 hours at a casual pace with plenty of stops to admire the scenery and have fun. Although this route had been on my bucket list for a long time, I was worried that the trail would have too much exposure to sheer cliffs dropping off over the ocean and that I would be suffering too much from my fear of heights. But the trail was quite wide and in the mile or so that is relatively exposed I was fine keeping one hand on the cliff wall next to the trail and I had one hiking pole in the other hand firmly planted in the ground. If you are a trail runner and headed to Kauai, you definitely need to run this route. A permit is required to be on the trail more than 6 miles from the trailhead (whether you are camping or just on a day trip) and you can reserve the permit online here.

We also drove around to the south side of the island and up into the Waimea canyon area and ran out on the Nualolo trail which gave us magnificent views back down onto the Napali Coast area. We thought we would be able to make a loop from the Nualolo trail along the Cliff trail and then return on the Awa'awapuhi Trail, but the Cliff trail was closed and fenced off so we did an out and back for a total of 7.5 miles and got some fantastic views and there are some photos below:

Nualolo trail route

View from the Nualolo trail

View down onto the Napali coast from the end of the Nualolo trail

View into Waimea canyon (from the drive to the Nualolo trailhead

Another view into Waimea canyon